Gandhi for the goose ain’t Gandhi for the gander?

Mail Today, the tabloid newspaper published by the India Today group, has launched a smart print and outdoor campaign in New Delhi.

With the tagline “The world has changed”, the campaign pits the past with the present. Kapil Dev, in his classic bowling action, but with cheer girls in the background. The new maharaja of the air, not the Air-India one but the king of good times, Vijay Mallya. And so on.

But it’s the ad featuring Mahatma Gandhi with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi that has set tongues wagging.

Reason: only last week, editor-at-large S. Prasannarajan had nibbled at the styluses of “professional panegyrists” and “sundry mythmakers from the media” who had canonised the new Mrs G (Sonia Gandhi) as better and brighter than the old Mrs G (Indira Gandhi), a barely disguised barb at competitor Outlook* which had a recent cover on Sonia titled “Smarter than Indira“.

So, juxtaposing Mr G with the real Mr G is OK, but juxtaposing Mrs G with Mrs G is not?